University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

UB 2020 BILL

Setting the Record Straight on the UB 2020 Flexibility and Economic Growth Act: Separating Fable from Facts

On June 3, the University at Buffalo experienced a milestone victory when the UB 2020 Flexibility and Economic Growth Act was passed by a significant margin in the New York State Senate. Now the Assembly begins to consider the bill, first in committee, then in the full body. Opponents of the bill have published and promulgated objections to the legislation, many of which are characterized by misinformation and misunderstanding of the bill’s provisions and intent. The document that follows highlights the most commonly voiced objections and provides you, as UB Believers, an accurate and informed understanding of the legislation, what it means to UB and its community, and why now is the right time to pass this bill for the University at Buffalo and the entire Buffalo Niagara region.

Issue: Why UB Only and Why Now?

The Fable

Passage of the bill will be harmful to the other university centers in the SUNY system. It would be better to wait another year until all four university centers can be incorporated into a single bill.

The Facts

• UB is committed to a unified approach to the four university centers within SUNY that recognizes their unique impact and their unique needs as public research universities, and provides the necessary tools to enable all four centers to maximize their educational, research and public service potential. The pilot legislation at UB will pave the way for the rest of the university centers to acquire this flexibility.
• UB is not asking to be exclusive but, instead, to be first, as we are uniquely positioned at this point in time through the UB 2020 plan to make this happen.
• The bill is not just UB’s idea. Most of the components of the legislation were initially proposed for the state’s public universities by the Commission on Higher Education, a representative body of private and public sector educators working in conjunction with elected and appointed state officials.
• UB 2020 is a comprehensive strategic plan that has been built from the bottom up, engaging faculty, staff, students, and the entire Buffalo-Niagara community, and it is ready to be implemented. UB 2020 is an economic catalyst for upstate New York. Buffalo is the third poorest city in the country. The Buffalo-Niagara area has a 9.6 percent unemployment rate, and over 51 percent of black men in Buffalo are unemployed. This bill provides UB the flexibility it desperately needs to create over 10,000 new permanent jobs, 20,000 construction jobs and nearly $2 billion more in yearly economic impact for the region. Why forestall that progress in Buffalo or any area of the state when the opportunity is available to make a difference now? A stronger Buffalo makes for a better New York State.
• The elements of the bill provide low-cost, high-impact solutions that Governor Paterson calls for to help move New York State forward.
• With multiple strategic priorities and projects currently underway at UB, passage of the legislation for UB this year will translate into multiple millions of dollars of savings to the state’s taxpayers now.

Issue: Tuition

The Fable

This bill will provide unilateral authority to the UB president to raise tuition, harming students and families, and eroding student access and diversity. The bill is antithetical to SUNY’s argument for a rational and predictable tuition plan.

The Facts

• This bill calls for a rational and predictable tuition plan very similar to what SUNY has proposed for a number of years.
• The legislation requires UB to reinvest 10?]20 percent of any tuition increase into need?]based aid programs. This investment, accompanied by UB’s extensive efforts to improve educational outcomes at the pre-K-12 level, will actually improve educational and financial access to UB for students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.
• The legislation mandates that TAP will cover the increased tuition for students who qualify under existing formulas. This legislation will actually expand access to UB through greater financial aid, not limit it. Thanks to the New York State legislature, our state’s financial aid will continue to be among the most generous nationwide.
• The legislation limits the amount that tuition can be increased. For undergraduate degree programs, tuition increases cannot exceed more than 1.5 times the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI) without SUNY trustee approval. Tuition for professional programs cannot be increased by more than 15 percent annually and will be tied to the Association of American Universities’ established mean for public institutions.
• These smaller, regular tuition increases will result in tuition hikes far less than the recent increase passed by the legislature, and will simplify educational financial planning for students and their families.
• The effective date for the tuition provision of the bill has been changed to January 1, 2010, meaning tuition will not be increased until academic year 2010?]11.
• A rational and predictable policy will also enable UB to plan more effectively and to strengthen its resources in order to achieve the educational and research stature (and related social and economic impacts) of its national public research university peers.
• UB’s Law School has had this tuition authority for 10 years. During that time, the Law School has remained one of the best tuition values among its peer institutions, while simultaneously improving its programs, student diversity, and availability of need-based scholarship funding.

Issue: Land Use and Public-Private Partnerships

The Fable

Land and assets located on the grounds of UB are paid for by taxpayers and legally owned by the state, not by SUNY or UB. This legislation would permit those assets to be used for purposes other than SUNY’s academic mission, including private use, at the sole discretion of the UB president. Under no circumstances should these state assets be sold, leased or subject to any other form of transaction without the executive and legislative oversight that currently exists.

The Facts

• Governor Paterson has stated, "The private sector can be a source of innovation, allowing us to increase the value, efficiency, and safety of assets like our aging infrastructure system."
• The intent of the land-lease provision of the bill is not to allow UB to sell off its land, but rather to allow UB to develop the land holdings it currently has and in a more efficient and cost?]effective way, using the private sector to leverage capital expansion. While the legislature has traditionally approved land?]lease arrangements, it can often take several years for those to be approved on a one-by-one basis.
• The UB 2020 plan, including its comprehensive physical master plan, ensures that campus development will be consistent with the university’s academic mission and goals. Furthermore, the president is accountable, by state education law, to the University Council and to the SUNY trustees for making wise and responsible decisions that are in the best interest of the university’s students, faculty and staff.
• This provision will benefit taxpayers by providing a source of revenue to finance key projects that otherwise would not be built or would fall upon the taxpayers of the State of New York to finance. It is estimated that nearly 40 percent of the UB’s comprehensive plan could be built by partnering with the private sector and utilizing quasi-governmental partners like Industrial Development Agencies and the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, providing a potential $1.7 billion in savings to New York taxpayers.
• In order to keep pace with competing public research universities in other states, UB needs to have the ability to advance capital projects more quickly and efficiently than current regulatory constraints allow. Most of UB’s Association of American University state flagship research university peers already have this ability and have used it to gain a competitive academic and research edge over UB and the other SUNY university centers.
• Examples of leasing and public-private partnership projects that UB might engage in include the construction of research facilities, on-campus conference center and parking facilities, and additional student housing.
• Variations of land-lease flexibility and public-private partnerships have been in place and successfully utilized at UB since as early as 1990. Examples of projects completed under existing provisions are the construction of the UB Commons (office, program, and retail space that provides services to students, faculty, staff and community members) and the construction of five student apartment complexes built since 1998.

Issue: Anti-Union

The Fable

This bill is anti?]labor. It lacks any guarantees to protect against outsourcing of public employee work or to provide prevailing wages on construction projects.

The Facts

• The bill has always included prevailing wage provisions.
• By working with UB’s partners, the bill has been amended to include Project Labor Agreements for certain construction projects, which will ensure full labor participation. By continuing to implement UB’s current practices and abiding by the provisions of the 2020 legislation, the university estimates that well over three-quarters of the construction needed for the full build-out of UB 2020 will involve unionized labor.
• The bill provides a framework that will lead to robust minority and women business enterprise and workforce diversity goals similar to those that have been so successful in the Buffalo Public Schools construction project.

The Issue: Exemptions

The Fable

This bill would exempt SUNY actions and officials from provisions of the Public Officers Law and the Ethics Law. No entity funded by the state should be exempted from the rules of appropriate governmental conduct.

The Facts

• This provision (which relates only to the activities of public-private partnerships in which UB acquired a vested ownership stake, not the day-to-day operations of the University at Buffalo) has been stricken from the bill in its entirety.

Issue: Public employees

The Fable

The legislation dramatically increases UB’s and SUNY’s authority while providing no protections for public employees working at UB. Public institutions should be staffed with public employees. Under this proposal, public services performed at UB that are currently provided by public employees could be outsourced or privatized.

The Facts

• UB 2020 and this legislation do not advocate for or facilitate outsourcing of any positions currently held by UB public employees.
• As UB 2020 is implemented, UB’s workforce will nearly double with the addition of over 6,700 jobs at UB. It is estimated that UUP state-funded faculty and professional staff employment at UB will grow by over 2,100 positions, in addition to at least 450 new CSEA jobs.
• The jobs created by UB 2020 will require workers with a wide range of skill sets, from entry?]level support staff to advanced-knowledge workers.
• UB will continue to be a proud part of the SUNY system. As a state university, UB is required to abide by hiring practices mandated by state law. This legislation does not exempt UB from those practices.

The Issue: Budget Allocation Process

The Fable

The bill seeks to unfairly protect UB’s state funding in comparison to other SUNY schools, and limits the state’s and SUNY’s ability to make selected investments in other SUNY campuses.

The Facts

• The state has frequently raised SUNY tuition and simultaneously cut base aid to the SUNY campuses by the equivalent amount of the tuition increase, resulting in students paying more for their education while receiving less (because of the cuts to base aid).
• This bill directs that the state cannot disproportionately reduce UB’s state budget allocation as a result of the increased tuition revenue that UB might receive through the ability to set its own tuition rate. Otherwise, the programmatic benefits to UB 2020 of the tuition component of the bill would be negated.